About Events A Conversation With Jennifer McClellan ’97 on Race, Equity and Policymaking A Conversation With Jennifer McClellan ’97 on Race, Equity and Policymaking OCT 14, 2020 5:00 PM Online via Zoom Register Virginia Sen. Jennifer McClellan ’97 will offer a glimpse into the real-world and challenging task of policymaking to address racial inequities. McClellan, who has served in the Virginia General Assembly since 2006, is a Democratic gubernatorial candidate for the 2021 election. If elected, she will be the first woman to serve as governor of Virginia, and the first Black female governor in the nation. McClellan has represented the 9th district in greater Richmond since joining the Senate in 2017, and represented the 71st district as a delegate from 2006-2017. She is the chair of the Virginia General Assembly’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Commission, and sits on a range of Senate legislative committees including Judiciary, Privileges and Elections, and Finance and Appropriations. Outside of her legislative career, she is an assistant general counsel for Verizon Communications. This event is sponsored with UVA Law’s State and Local Government Policy Clinic, the Center for the Study of Race and Law, the Public Service Center, the Black Law Students Association, Child Advocacy Research and Education, the Public Interest Law Association and the Virginia Law in Prison Project. Senator Jennifer McClellan As a daughter of community leaders and educators raised in the segregated South during the Depression, Jennifer McClellan was raised with a strong sense of servant leadership and a calling to strengthen her community. Her family’s experience and her study of history taught her that government can either be a force for progressive change to solve problems or a force of oppression that benefits a select few. At a young age, Jenn dedicated herself to ensuring government was that force of change for all. For most of her life, Jenn has channeled those values into her commitment for progress, equity, and justice in the Commonwealth. She has implemented those values as a leader in the community, the Democratic party, and in her over fourteen years of service as a legislator in the Virginia General Assembly. Jenn gets things done. She has been a driving force for progressive change in Virginia, leading the passage of landmark laws to invest in education, grow small business, expand access to health care, ban discrimination and inequity, safeguard workers’ rights and voting rights, reform the criminal justice system, protect a woman’s right to choose, and tackle climate change. Jenn lives in Richmond with her husband, David Mills, and their two children, Jackson and Samantha. Stay Up To Date with the Latest Batten News and Events Subscribe